Hello Autumn

It's a Sunday night and G made a valid point that I haven't written a blog post in a while. It's not because I've forgotten about it, but rather because there's a lot happening and big decisions being made (more about that in another post). My last post was 30 Before 30 but that didn't really discuss how I felt/thought about living in AMS etc. - that was last discussed in March as we were starting to escape winter's clutches. We had a nice summer although only a few weeks of it felt like a proper hot summer (and I was in Rome for the bulk of this). However, autumn has felt a bit like an anti-climax. It seems to have only properly started 3 days ago as the temperatures have been hovering around 13-15 for the past few weeks. On Friday it dropped and now it feels like winter is properly on its way. There's a pot of soup on the stove, the heating is on and I'm wearing a tracksuit plus slippers plus a blanket. Ok, maybe I'm overcompensating a little!

A beautiful summer day in Rembrandtpark, Amsterdam

It's been an eventful 8 months since my last post. I left my job and moved to a much better one – more interesting work, nicer people, more responsibility and a more interesting range of products. G left his job and returned 3 months later. We had a fun summer in AMS, made new friends and started making decisions about our future. We both finally got around to registering with our respective professional bodies as full members instead of partially-qualified students. And we have seen more of Europe. Since end of March, we've been to:

- Berlin. What a cool city but we definitely needed more than just a weekend. We focused on museums and the history whereas there is so much more to this vibrant city than its history. It's a bit like Paris where you'd probably need a fortnight to even start understanding a portion of it. I can tick it off the list but it's a faint tick.

- Mallorca. We went as G's middle brother and some of his friends were competing in a half Iron Man. G also entered as a team member of a relay and did the cycling portion. Such a beautiful place! I love the south of Spain and the Balearic islands are no different except it has more of a holiday feel than the mainland. The weather was very warm and I'm glad we spent more than a weekend there. We rented a scooter and explored a bit of the countryside; we had a few very fun nights out and mooched on the beach and at the hotel pool. Overall it was a proper holiday.

- Norway. This has been the best trip we've done. What an unbelievable country! The landscapes are amazing and even though it wasn't a cheap holiday, I would happily do it again and again. Once again we spent a few days here, flying into Oslo for a night and then taking a series of trains, ferries and buses through the fjords over 2 days across to Bergen in the west where we stayed for 3 nights. We walked beautiful trails, ate more salmon than is probably good for us and took thousands of photos. We were there over the longest day of the year so it was still light long after 11, yet we managed to find snow and ice. What a beautiful country.

A small village on the Aurlandfjord, Norway

- Rome. I was sent to Rome for 3 weeks for my new job in July. There are definitely worse places to be sent for 3 weeks! My luggage didn't arrive for the first few days which was a setback, but KLM compensated me for some new clothes. The second weekend of my trip was our wedding anniversary so G came over and we basically had an all-expenses paid anniversary weekend in Rome. Winning!

- Les Contamines, near Chamonix. Friends of ours from SA have a chalet in a small village in the French Alps that they were visiting for a few days, so 6 of us had a wonderful weekend walking in the mountains, eating delicious food and getting horribly drunk in the jacuzzi. Trips like this make me miss home and the crazy people we've left behind.

- Nerja, Costa Del Sol. This was a solo weekend for me while G was on a boys' weekend to Prague (they shot guns, rode in tanks and generally behaved like boys). I had a wonderful weekend walking in the mountains, sitting on the beach, eating tapas and people-watching.

Next on the list is Cologne in Germany in early December, London for Christmas, a ski trip to Saalbach in Austria (Can. Not. Wait!), a trip to SA for several weddings, hopefully a trip to Krakow in April then a big adventure in June that starts with a wedding in Chamonix (we're still ironing out the details).

Winter sun in Nerja, Spain

We've also had quite few visitors these past few months. G's dad, my parents, a friend from Australia, a friend from SA who had just moved to London, a friend from Germany that I hadn't seen in over a decade (but I've seen her twice this year and we'll be visiting her in December), friends from London and relatives that I've never met before.

We've both trained for and completed another half marathon (I did the Rotterdam in April and we both did the Amsterdam in October, even though I had been quite ill in the build up and probably shouldn't have run it). In and near AMS we've visited castles, celebrated Kings Day, celebrated Gay Pride, gone ice karting (go karting on an ice track), braai'ed in Vondelpark (definitely not the same as a South African braai!), explored coastal nature reserves, celebrated a friend's birthday in a boat on the canals, witnessed the wonder of Amsterdam SAIL (thousands of boats including impressive tall ships in the harbour to celebrate the city's maritime history – only happens every 5 years), seen The Script perform, seen Fall Out Boy perform, seen One Republic amongst others perform at the PinkPop festival (Foo Fighters were supposed to headline but Dave Grohl broke his leg 2 nights earlier), lost money trying to get tickets to Foo Fighters, had some fun nights out with friends and generally tried to experience everything this city has to offer. Coming up, we have tickets to Florence and the Machines, Imagine Dragons and Mumford & Sons. We want to see some more museums now that the weather is cooling – we still haven't been to the Rijksmuseum even though we've been here for over 2 years! We haven't done a New Years in the city so we'll be here for that and all the fireworks (the Dutchies LOVE their fireworks). And I'm sure there are hundreds of other other things we will be squeezing in.

SAIL, Amsterdam

Overall, things are going well here and we're doing everything we set out to do: travel, experience living somewhere else and generally get out of our comfort zones. We never intended to move here permanently and nothing about that plan has changed.

30 Before 30

I can’t quite remember how the topic came up, but last week Nikki asked if I was doing 30 Before 30. I hadn’t thought about it but I liked the idea so when we got home that evening I started drawing up a list. It’s quite difficult to come up with ideas of things I haven’t done before, that I would be interested in doing and will be able to do before 1 August 2016 (e.g. finding a message in a bottle on a beach means that 1. I’ll need to go to a beach which is likely but 2. There needs to be a bottle with a message on that exact beach which is unlikely and 3. Somebody can’t have found the bottle before me which is even more unlikely). I looked at other people's lists on Pinterest and occasionally I would see things like "Get married" or "have kids" but that's not always within your control. And I'm already married and not sure if I want to have kids by August next year. Some of the things on my list are things every 30 year old should have done and others are a little silly. Some are for both G and I (such as number 11) and others are just for me (such as 3). I also reserve the right to change the list as I go.

So, here is my list (in the order I thought of them/found them on Pinterest):

1. Cook a roast chicken with gravy and roast veg

2. Go vegetarian for a week

3. Go on holiday by myself

4. Floss every day for a full calendar month

5. Learn to say hello and goodbye in 10 languages.

6. Run a sub-2 hour half marathon (this is possibly the most difficult one – I’m capable of completing one but I’m not exactly fast)

7. Go sober for a full calendar month

8. Host a party/dinner for a particular holiday and go all out with food, décor, research etc. (possibly linked to number 24?)

9. Fire a real gun

10. Ride a motorbike (sitting on the back of one counts – G has a licence so he is very excited about this one)

11. Watch every James Bond movie in order of release. I love Bond but haven’t watched many of the older ones.

12. Watch the sunrise and sunset of the same day (I have done this indirectly before but never concentrated on watching the entire things on the same day)

13. Create photo books of our trips

14. Create a message in a bottle and send it out to sea

15. Attend a proper yoga class (yip, I’ve never done this)

16. Get a caricature done of me

17. Get my fortune told by a crazy gypsy lady in a little caravan

18. Buy a ticket for a random destination at the last minute (i.e. go to the airport with my bags packed, ask for the next flight that costs less than x-amount and go)

19. Dye my hair a completely different colour (slightly closer to blonde doesn’t count)

20. Send someone flowers anonymously for no reason

21. Take G to a ballet/opera

22. Cook a roast beef with Yorkshire puddings and all the veg

23. Read Gone With The Wind (as a nerd I probably should have done this by now)

24. Learn more about Judaism (growing up in a mixed religion household only taught me so much – there are definitely gaps in my knowledge)

25. Knit a scarf but with slightly more than plain knitting techniques (i.e. more than what we learnt in Grade 4)

26. Learn how to play poker properly – more than just Texas Hold ‘em (actually, my Texas Hold ‘em knowledge can also use some brushing up)

27. Invest more. Need to decide on what though – property? Shares?

28. Get hypnotised

29. Be an audience member of a TV show. We were on the list for Graham Norton but couldn't make it. I'll keep trying. The benefit of being in AMS is that London isn't too far away.

30. Still to be determined. G thinks it should be something almost impossible or incredibly silly.

I’ve started preparing for some of them: I’ve downloaded all the James Bond movies and we’ve already watched Dr No. I have my mother's and grandmother’s recipe for Yorkshire puddings. We’re in a great part of the world to see ballet or opera. Yesterday I discovered that one of our favourite junk shops sells knitting stuff. Now that this is out in the internet, I have 490 days to do the above. Wish me luck!

Winter blues and no regrets (mostly)

Once again it has been a long time since my last blog post. I've gathered that my last post gave the impression that we're never moving back to SA. Clearly that was written before winter had properly started! It's the end of March now and I think G and I deserve a medal for surviving the miserableness that is Europe in winter. At least this year we had snow - our first winter here was just cold and wet. I really struggled with the cold: I was prepared in terms of clothing but unprepared mentally. How can you go so long without the feeling of a hot sun beating down on your skin? Us poor African children were brought up to play outside 365 days a year. Boy I struggled. 

View from my train platform on a snowy day

But now Spring has arrived and the flowers have starting to appear on the islands in the middle of the roads. It’s not hot but at least some days the temperature is double digits. As I write this I'm sitting on a blanket in the sun in Vondel Park watching a lady throw sticks into a pond for her dog to fetch. I'm not sure who is happier - me or him. The sun is glorious and I think the whole of AMS is out to enjoy it. G is cycling by himself towards the dunes on the west coast and I had brunch earlier with some friends from that girls group I mentioned in the last post. Today life feels pretty good. 

Dog jumping into a pond in Vondel Park

But it's not all sunshine and daffodils. On Monday we got back from a very quick trip home for a friend's wedding. We had 10 days of family and friends and all it did was remind us where our hearts truly lie. We came to Europe with the intention of travelling and we have done that. We also have some nice trips lined up for the next few months (Berlin, Mallorca and Norway are already booked). But home is starting to call. Our friends at home are having babies, buying "grown-up" houses and saying goodbye to ill parents. We're missing out on being there for them. It's a very strange feeling whenever we go back. Everything feels the same but so much has changed and will continue to change. This whole experience is one big reminder that the only constant in life is change.

View of Llandudno (taken while cycling in Cape Town)

All of that said, I have no regrets. Yesterday I started compiling a 30 Before 30 list (30 things to do that I've never done before I turn 30 in August 2016) and I started where all other personal goals and projects start: Pinterest.  It was quite an ego booster to read other people's lists and see that I've done a lot already. I'll do a separate blog post for my list once I know what they all are (I'm stuck on 21 items). I think my mother will be horrified to read that the first one is roasting a chicken. Yes, I am a respectable married woman who has a postgraduate degree and has lived abroad, but I have never roasted a chicken. We can’t all be perfect…

Anyway, back to no regrets. In my last blog post I mentioned buying racing bikes. We did this in January and almost immediately starting riding them. In January. In Europe. Let’s just say my feet are still recovering from the first 3 rides – a beautiful range of purples, blues, yellows and reds that would look lovely in an art gallery but painful on my feet. We stocked up on suitable riding kit but that only protects you so much…I can also confirm that this country is flat. Training adequately for the Cape Town Cycle Tour was challenging and we were both slightly relieved when the course was drastically reduced from 109km to 47km following a week of fires around the Cape peninsula. The weather and flatness of NL had not prepared us sufficiently for the full distance’s route profile. We would have completed the race but we would have suffered a bit more than we’re used to suffering on long rides like that. Now that it’s over, I’m training for my second half marathon in April and G is concentrating on cycling for Iron Man.

G on a ride along the Amstel river with his shiny new racing bike

I finally arranged to attend a beginner’s Dutch course for 8 weeks earlier this year. I’m glad I did it but it was 2 nights a week which becomes quite taxing, especially when you’re trying to build new friendships and then have to turn down invites. I’d like to continue with the next course but not yet. I’m also not 100% sure it will benefit me in the long run. I know one of the reasons I wanted to go to a non-English speaking country was to learn a new language (I even wrote a whole blog post about it in June 2014) but it becomes a lot more difficult when the locals prefer speaking English to me because it’s 1000 times easier than trying to put up with my broken Dutch. All the discussion about moving back to SA doesn’t help matters much either.

A wine, food and craft market at Westergasfabriek (western AMS)

But summer is just around the corner. We've already noticed the terrace bars and cafes have more tables and chairs out. The general mood of the city is a little happier - I don't think we're the only people tired of the cold. Vondel Park is packed most evenings when I go for a run and tickets for the summer music festivals have gone on sale (I managed to get tickets for PinkPop - whoop whoop). Last year we missed a whole month of summer due to our wedding and I'm really looking forward to experiencing a full season here. If last year was anything to go by, it should be good.

Overall, the mood in our little home in AMS is positive but we’re missing SA and counting the minutes to summer.

Time flies when you're having fun

Five months have passed since my last post and that’s not because there hasn’t been anything happening here – quite the opposite. In these 5 months:

1. G and I got married which involved 3 weeks in SA (2 weddings, 2 hens/bulls parties, lots of running around and lots of socializing – it was exhausting) and a week of honeymoon in Mauritius (swimming with dolphins, reading, cocktails on the beach, many rounds of Scrabble and great food – it was perfect). I’ll post about the wedding separately.

Our happy day

2. I changed jobs. Before we left I told my recruiter that I wanted to start looking for a new job when I got back as I thought it would take a few months to find something suitable and I didn’t want to get to December when my contract expired and be stuck in a dead market. I was wrong. The day after I got back my recruiter phoned to say he had a position I might like. Less than a month later I’d signed the contract and given my notice. I’ve now been at my new huge global corporate for 7 weeks and it doesn’t sound like they will be retrenching me anytime soon which gives me comfort. I’m very happy to be back in the food industry – I can identify with our consumers more than the tobacco industry and I don’t introduce myself by saying I work for the devil…

3. We moved. We realized that our very convenient but uncomfortable apartment had served its purpose and it was time to move on so we started the tedious task of trawling the internet and open houses for a new home. We were lucky to find a nice spot after viewing only a handful of apartments. From what I’ve heard this process can be a nightmare and very competitive. We moved on 1 November into a 2-bedroom apartment in the west of AMS. It’s a much nicer neighbourhood and we have: a dishwasher (hallelujah!), a microwave (hallelujah!), a spare bedroom (hallelujah!), a decent oven (hallelujah!) and a TV (hallelujah!). No, we did not have any of those things in our old apartment and, yes, I do think we were living in a cave. It’s 10 minutes closer to my new job and G is a 5 minute bike ride from his office. So basically we’re winning. Oh, and we had to pay three months deposit plus first month’s rent up front. Eina.

A chicken before it went into our new (decent) oven for roasting

4. We’ve had our first visitors that weren’t Nikki & Conway so we had the opportunity to test out our personalised guide to AMS.

A windmill - part of our AMS tour for visitors

5. We’ve been to Budapest (possibly my favourite city), Geneva (beautiful but expensive), London (always a pleasure) and a small family holiday resort near Nijmegen. We’re in Paris next weekend, London for Christmas and the German/French border region for New Year with some friends visiting from home and London. We’ve also witnessed how AMS comes alive during summer – the entire city vibrates with energy and feels so exciting. Everywhere you look there are things going on and people doing interesting things. It’s hard to explain.

Budapest - in front of the parliament

6. We trained for and completed our first half marathon, the TCS Amsterdam. We concluded that G is a lot faster than I am.

7. We registered for the Cape Argus Cycle Tour in March and G signed up to do the cycle leg of a triathlon on May so we realized we might need actual racing bikes and have started shopping around. Budget constraints might push this to January though (we both need new phones, we need to pay for the flights for March and our savings are tied up in the deposit for the flat).

8. We’ve done several Meet-Up expat group tours of AMS to learn more about the city: a Homeless tour (red light district tour done by a former junkie who illegally squatted there back in the 70’s and 80’s), a kayak tour through the central canals, a Jordaan district tour and an Eastern Docklands district tour. This weekend we’re touring the Zuid district and next Wednesday we’re doing a historical Dutch Golden Age tour. We’ve seen Sinterklaas and his troop of Zwarte Piets arrive in AMS which signals the start of Christmas in NL and in December we will go to Gouda to watch a very special lighting of the Christmas tree in the city square.

Kayaking through the Amsterdam canals

9. I’ve joined a new ladies’ Meet-Up group that is also keeping me busy. The girls are lovely and there are a few regulars who I’ve become friends with. I think I’ll keep it up although I always feel a little guilty when I abandon G on a Wednesday night or Sunday evening for drinks/dinner. Boys don’t do this type of thing.

10. My laptop crashed along with 11 years of photos – only the first 6 years are back up. Oops. We managed to recover everything although it’s not nicely organized by year, month and event. My mild OCD cannot handle unorganized photos so I’ve sifted through over 45000 files (basically they were all duplicated several times and about half have no useable data so they’re blank) and deleted the junk ones and am now sorting them into years.

So it’s been busy few months and the next couple of months don’t appear to be letting up much. We seem to have built a mini-life here even though we’ve been very distracted by the above. The wedding was the biggest distraction and it felt like a relief when it was over. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and day but I never want to do it again! We’ve had several discussions on our timeline for staying here and haven’t reached any concrete conclusions. Both of our hearts are definitely in SA but I love it here. Last night I cycled to a restaurant for dinner and on the return I realized that I would never do that in SA – cycling by myself with my handbag over my shoulder at 10pm in the middle of the city. In SA you can’t jump on a train and be in Paris in 3 hours or jump on a plane and be in Budapest on 1 hour. You don’t move house and have your pension provider automatically send your statement to the new address less than 2 weeks after moving without you telling them (or even if you do tell them). But then I look at my Facebook feed and see my friends lounging by the pool or having a braai on an average Thursday evening and it looks like paradise. If you want a garden you don’t need to be a CEO or FD – a decent job can afford a nice house. The food has flavour and a new pair of average running pants doesn’t cost as much as an expensive dinner. Both experiences are very different and the grass is not greener in either place. What I do know is that I’m really enjoying it here in AMS/NL/Europe and I’ll hang around for a bit longer.

The Language Thing

When G and I first started researching NL, we discovered quite quickly that a) the Dutch language is not that different to Afrikaans and b) the Dutch speak very good English. During our first few months of living in Ede I found that I was picking up Dutch quite quickly without much effort thanks in part to the limited Afrikaans that I knew and in part to the fact that I was living in a small town where Dutch is definitely required. My vocabulary was expanding and I was starting to get the hang of the basics. Then we moved to Amsterdam. It didn’t take long to realise that my Dutch was going backwards because nobody in this city speaks the local language (that’s what it feels like anyway). We have a teach-yourself book but I wanted to do an evening course to provide structure and to fight my laziness, but the courses generally all start in the same week and run over the same 6 week blocks. I couldn’t do the courses starting in February because I was visiting SA during that time so would miss a few (expensive) lessons. I completely forgot in March/April and once May rolled round I realised that I would be away for a large chunk of the June/July classes. This means I can only do a course from August/September onwards. I can still understand a fair amount when reading or listening carefully, but speaking is a problem which probably has more to do with self-confidence than actual ability.

Up until today, I have had a mild guilt complex because I’m living in a country and I don’t know the local language. This all changed this morning on my way to work. It looked like it might rain so I took the metro. I was putting my headphones on as I was boarding the carriage which meant my hair and the long headphone cable had an altercation. I was fixing the hair/cable situation whilst getting comfortable in a seat and didn’t immediately notice the person sitting facing me. Out of nowhere these clumsy hands shot across to the cable and my leg and started to try help me untangle the cable. I looked up to see who was doing this and instantly realised the person was mentally and physically disabled. He was innocently trying to help me and explain his actions but I couldn’t respond in a way that he would understand and I was battling to understand him because a) he was speaking Dutch and b) his Dutch was very slurred/mumbled due to his disability. All I wanted to say was thanks but it’s ok if it’s tangled and I could tell that he did not understand my English. He then had this very sad look on his face, probably thinking how I didn’t appreciate his actions which is not at all the case. I felt terrible but there was nothing I could do beyond asking someone else to intervene but the other person sitting with us clearly did not want to get involved. Not a good start to the day.

So from this I have realised that even if 45% of the local residents were not born in the city and therefore everyone speaks a more international language, if you want to be a responsible and caring citizen you need to learn the language.  

P.S. My English vocabulary also seems to have gone backwards - dealing with second-language speakers all day with no time to read in the evenings and severe bride-brain does not make you sound intelligent...

The Surname Issue

Warning! This isn’t a blog post about traveling or moving to a new city. This is a wedding-related post and it is also an opinion piece: MY opinion #ShockHorror #DontJudge #NoPhotosInThisPost #YesIAmHashtagging.

Gordon and I consider ourselves to be a 21st couple. We lived together before we were engaged, we both work full-time as professionals in demanding fields and all household expenses are shared 50/50. Both of our opinions carry equal weighting and all decisions are made in consultation with each other (except the honeymoon location – that he needs to keep a surprise). But with some things I am traditional. He had to ask for my parents’ permission to marry me although I never told him this (good boy – he knew) and I want a traditional wedding with some tweaks because they look fun. I am also taking his surname. Yes, a self-proclaimed independent 21st century professional working woman is giving up her identity. What a load of c$%p.

I am not getting married for religious reasons – I was raised in a mixed religion household where I was whatever religion suited me at the time (simplified explanation: being Anglican got me into a very good private school and being Jewish gives me a German passport both of which got me to where I am today). I am getting married because I want to make a promise in front of every person who means something to me and I therefore respect that I will love Gordon for the rest of my life and I will be loyal to him and to us, no matter what. If God/Buddha/The Flying Spaghetti Monster bless us in the process then that’s great. The more who witness it the better. I am not getting into this marriage so that my father settles a debt with Gordon’s father or for us to breed a superior race of humans and therefore cure cancer. I am doing this because I love him and I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him as his partner. As a bonus, I get a new surname.

I will always be a Gans* and I will still be on the Gaggle of Geese whatsapp group that my immediate family has. For about a week I thought about getting a tiny tattoo somewhere of a goose but that means getting a tattoo which is something that I will never do. My legal surname will change but my email address will remain. Gordon has said a few times that he feels honoured that I would change my surname to his but for me it’s part of the Wedded Couple Package.

A friend of my parents’ kept her surname and she apparently found that it became awkward once their child was at school and people would ask why the child’s parents have different surnames – people assumed that they were divorced or never married. South African society is quite conservative about things like this – in NL people often don’t get married and it’s accepted by society as being as normal as being married. Our future as we currently see it is in SA but this is not the reason I’m taking his surname. Yes it means fewer discussions and raised eyebrows when we drop the kids off at school or birthday parties but that is an added bonus.

I know people who kept their surname for professional reasons but at age 27 I haven’t sat on the board of a Fortune 500 company so my name is not that important for my career – potential employers will still need to look at my CV to determine if I’m the right candidate and I haven’t worked at a company (until now) where if you ask for references and say “Louise who worked in Finance” the company doesn’t know who that is. My current employer is a huge global company but I’m here whilst changing my surname so my manager/HR will know me by both names.

My manager kept her surname when she married but she said changing it would have meant going from one long complicated name beginning with an S to another. And she said she was just too lazy to change it (I gather that it’s not an automatic thing in NL whereas in SA it is).

I could double-barrel the old and new surnames but someone once told me that double-barreled names meant there was a divorce in the family at some stage. I have subsequently learnt that this is not the case and in fact it indicates a marriage but I still can’t get the idea out of my head that I would be creating the perception that I was divorced. This is a good example of my stubbornness – I know my reasoning is wrong but I’m so set in my ways that I can’t overcome the thought.

So, then, why am I changing my surname from a 4-letter single syllable one to an 8-letter 3 syllable one with awkward capitals in the middle? I have 2 passports, a driver’s license (soon to have one for NL as well), an ID, 2 current bank accounts, 2 credit cards, a property plus all that goes with that and all of the usual bills and accounts that currently say Gans. It will be a nightmare to change all of these so why not just stay as I am? These are all just things. They do not define me. My current surname is simple and I enjoy the Dutch pronouncing it in Dutch – they will probably panic when they see the new one. To me, getting a new surname is one of the few traditional things that I’m doing in amongst the sea of New World things that I do every day.

I will miss Google automatically translating my NL internet banking name to LT Goose and Gordon’s silly laughter whenever he calls me Lieutenant Goose. I will no longer Google my name and see a New York Acting Chief Justice’s name but rather a freelance translator. I am looking forward to the day when someone calls me Louise Gans and I have to correct them. They will immediately know that I have married and I will quietly think to myself that I am still Louise Gans but I am also Louise McTavish. Mostly, I am still myself.

*Gans in German and Dutch (and some other languages) means Goose in English

The Bicycle

The Netherlands is known for many things, but probably the one that has the biggest impact on daily life is the way that the Dutch are devoted to The Bicycle. Before we moved here I’d heard and read about how everyone is on bicycles but until you see it for yourself, you think the guide-books and blogs show posed photographs. Those pictures you see of a bicycle leaning against a pretty canal are real. Except it’s not one or two pretty bikes leaning against the canal, it’s thousands. Thousands of bicycles. EVERYWHERE. Arriving at Amsterdam Centraal or any train station will blow your mind because you can’t believe how many bikes can be in such a small area. And they are in all conditions – old, new, single-speed, 3 gears, pedal breaks, normal breaks, Omafietsen, racing bikes, mountain bikes, bent wheels, flat tyres, covered in plant life, wicker baskets, spraypainted neatly, spraypainted badly, beer crates, flower garlands, worn-spring-exposed saddles, tandem with kids seats and my personal favourite: the bakfiets* – it has a trunk on the front for loading groceries/kids/furniture/dogs/grannies. How you turn a corner when you have wriggling children in a huge bucket in the front of your bicycle is beyond me but this shows the capability of the Dutch on bicycles. These people can cycle before they can walk and the cyclist is king. Pedestrians and drivers must give way to a cyclist, even if the traffic light changed 15 seconds ago. The dedicated cycle lane system with cyclist traffic lights is really impressive and 99% of the time it can’t be faulted. It’s fantastic.

 A lone Omafiets alongside the canal 

Our first four months of being in NL were spent living in Ede and once we moved to A’dam I wanted to get a feel for how things worked so I used public transport to get to the office (and it was February so still a bit cold). One mid-March Saturday, Gordon and I decided to test out my route to work. Google said it was 10.2km door-to-door and would take 34 minutes. Considering the metro takes 28 minutes, cycling supposedly was a good alternative. That first attempt showed that I have an easy route but it did not flow well as there was a huge rowing regatta happening on the river so we had to negotiate screaming crowds for the first 5km. But I knew how to get to the office on Monday which was the purpose of the excursion.

The view from the first 5km of my daily commute

Monday morning, I left the apartment 45 minutes before I was supposed to be there so that I had a buffer. My ride was lovely. The first 1.5km is city cycling but along the Amstel river. Then the city suddenly disappears and for 3.5km I’m cycling with the river next to me on the left and beautiful parks and gardens on the right. Across the river is farmland. It’s lovely and a popular route for runners, serious cyclists and commuting cyclists. It looks flat but has a few sneaky rises which you notice when you are on a single-speed bike.

The windmill and a serious cyclist (note the helmet) at the turning point in my commute

At the 5km mark there is a typical Dutch windmill and that’s there I turn onto a lovely country road with canals on both sides with farmland, sports fields and cute little houses for about 1.5km. This is also popular with trainers and commuters. After that I turn onto the final stretch which is a main road (with more-than-sufficient cycling lanes) that basically takes me to my office. This road also looks deceivingly flat and is lined with apartment blocks, canals and patches of tulips and daffodils. Just before my office, I have to go under the metro which means a ramp down then up the other side. Thanks to the gentle undulations and the last (significant) ramp, I was drenched in sweat and about 5 minutes late. This was not a good start to a Monday morning! I’d packed my deodorant as a precaution but that wasn’t sufficient – I needed a shower and a fresh shirt. I hastily dabbed toilet paper wherever possible in the bathroom and took deep breathes to dry mitigate the problem but I knew the damage had been done. This was not mentioned in the guidebooks and blogs, which is why I’m telling you here – NL is not flat and cycling 10km in 45 minutes on a heavy single-speed Omafiets will leave you sweaty.

The middle stretch of my commute - my favourite part

There have been several cycles to work since then and I am slowly mastering the art. Tip 1: Don’t trust Google – I give myself an hour so I don’t have to rush which means a) less sweating and b) I can enjoy the scenery more. Tip 2: Don’t ride with your handbag strapped across you – it will hold the back of your shirt against you which leads to sweating. Air flow is good. Tip 3: Even if it feels really cold, don’t ride with a warm jacket because after 3km you will feel those evil beads running down your back and it’s really hard to recover from there. Remove the jacket asap. Tip 4: Take an umbrella and a scarf just in case. No explanation required. Tip 5: Crossing the road can reduce the number of undulations on a particular stretch – this is worth investigating. Tip 6: Enjoy it. The days when I cycle to the office always seem better than the days using public transport. The endorphins and lack of sneezing passengers make you feel great and it’s a sneaky way to burn a few more calories – very useful in the weeks before your wedding!

Gordon's commute is through the city - the red lane indicates a bicycle lane (see how close to the tram line it is!)

It’s a hard feeling to explain, but riding through the city surrounded by traffic and other bicycles is when I feel the most like a local. I feel like an Amsterdammer even though I’ve only been living in this city for 3.5 months. It’s by far the best way to experience NL and we are planning a countryside adventure on our bikes over the long weekend in June – route still to be determined. When we were living in Ede we would often ride through the forest and farmlands on the well-marked cycling routes. It was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon. This country appreciates bicycles and I love it.

*A colleague of mine says only people who aren’t from Amsterdam ride a bakfiets and he means that in a not-very-nice way.